On May 2, 2012, Charles Schwab & Co. announced an initiative to make its website more accessible for all customers, particularly those who are blind or have sight disabilities. This high-profile development was part of the settlement of a claim by Kit Lau, a Charles Schwab customer for more than 25 years.
My partners, Catherine Holmes and Victor Shum, have alerted us to an important new development that will affect new development projects in California. The State of California has decided that it will not certify any new "targeted employment areas" or TEAs under the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. If you develop hotels and other real estate, you are well aware of the financing opportunities provided by the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program -- and you are also know the importance of locating your project in a TEA.
Here are 10 things to consider about making your process smoother and more successful. It seems like hotel management agreements are on everyone's mind these days. Development is coming back. Many owners of existing property are repositioning their hotel properties. And old management agreements continue to expire or occasionally are terminated.
The hotel industry experts have published their forecasts for 2012 and they seem to agree on the following two predictions: (1) The hotel sector will continue to improve in 2012, with RevPar increasing anywhere from 4 to 6 percent, depending on which expert you follow. (2) It's going to be a rocky year for hotel loans held by lenders, particularly for those loans made at the peak of the last cycle in 2006 and 2007, and especially for loans that cannot be extended further. Some of these loans are securitized with complicated structures that involve multiple tranches of senior and junior debt sold. Others never got securitized and weigh heavily on lenders' books.
What will be the key legal issues facing the hotel industry in China next year? We asked Dr. Ulrike Glueck (pictured) , Managing Partner of the Shanghai office of the international law firm CMS, and her Senior Associate Hugh Zhou, to share their expectations with The Hotel Yearbook. What will be the key legal issues facing the hotel industry in China next year? We asked Dr. Ulrike Glueck (pictured) , Managing Partner of the Shanghai office of the international law firm CMS, and her Senior Associate Hugh Zhou, to share their expectations with The Hotel Yearbook.
As OTAs (online travel agents) have become bigger and more powerful, they have not only drawn fire from the hotel industry but have also been scrutinized in terms of their impact on competition, and this will certainly remain a hot topic in 2012. We asked Tom Page, Head of the Hotel & Leisure Group for London-based CMS Cameron McKenna LLP, to give Hotel Yearbook readers an overview of the issues.
As you should know by now if you are following developments on the Americans with Disabilities Act (or ADA), the most sweeping changes to the ADA in 20 years become effective on March 15, 2012. It seems that almost every day there is some new development or interpretation of the new rules. For an up-to-date summary of some key provisions, please see articles listed at the end of this posting.
It is always a good feeling when someone you respect pays you a nice compliment. That's what happened yesterday when GlobeSt.com gave JMBM's ADA Defense and Compliance Lawyers quite an acknowledgement. Miriam Lamey covers the hotel sector for GlobeSt.com. Last week Miriam called me for an interview to go over some of the subject Marty Orlick and I have been writing about recently to help the hotel industry understand the meaning and importance of new ADA regulations which will go into effect March 15, 2012.
In the current economic environment, challenging scenarios lie ahead for the US hotel industry. Increased financial uncertainties mean that certain legal issues related to the relationship between owners and developers, asset managers and operators will come into sharper focus in 2012. Letvia M. Arza-Goderich (pictured) and Scott A. Preston, of Los Angeles based Preston Arza LLP, share their outlook for the coming year.
Keeping that in mind, our first 2012 Hospitality Conversations™ was with Dr. William Frye, CHE of Niagara University, who has enhanced his professional knowledge by his active involvement in faculty internships with both Marriott and Hyatt Hotels. Dr. Frye offered a diverse number of topics that he believes face hospitality business professionals today. For our next Hospitality Conversations™, I contacted another well-known professional who is a frequent guest speaker at professional, legal and writing associations. Karen Morris is a Judge, Lawyer, Professor and Author. http://judgekaren.com/ She also someone who “walks the talk”.
Hotel lawyers will tell you that there are always disputes going on between hotel owners and operators, and that most of them are resolved at the bargaining table without any legal action. Some disputes advance into litigation with the filing of a complaint, and others go to arbitration. The choice between litigation and arbitration is normally determined by the terms of the management agreement. Operators seem to prefer arbitration and they have pushed to create a trend to arbitrate. The arbitrations are "private" and tend to be missed by the press and are conducted in secrecy.
ADA Defense Lawyers. Is your pool, spa and fitness facility compliant with the ADA 2010 Regulations? If you think your property is grandfathered, then you are wrong! There is no grandfathering. As we mentioned in our recent posted article "Updating Service Animal Policies of Your Hotel," the Department of Justice published revised final regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for title III (public accommodations and commercial facilities) on September 15, 2010 (the "2010 Regulations").
While it takes an accomplished clairvoyant to predict where RevPar 1, ADRs2 and Occupancy3 will be in the coming months, or for that matter the coming years, for those hospitality owners and operators trying to weather the economic storm there has been some positive news recently out of a place that few wish to spend "too many a night" – the United States Bankruptcy Court4. In the spring of 2011 an oceanfront hotel owner was successful in arguing that it is permitted to use the revenues generated from its guests' stay and use of amenities to assist in the reorganization of the company.
Summary: Hotel & Leisure Advisors has accumulated a database of more than 6,000 hotel sales since 2000. This article analyzes the average hotel sale prices per room for the major brands in the hotel industry. Our comparison includes top 10 brands by room count. It includes nearly 3,000 transactions between January 2007 and August 2011. Our analysis indicates that the Hilton Hotels and Resorts brand achieved the highest mean and median sale price per room of the top brands by room count in the United States, while the Days Inn brand achieved the lowest mean and median sale prices per room.
Due to increased hotel development in Russia and the CIS, it is important for owners to better understand different types of relations with the hotel operators. In this article we address some of the main terms of a typical management contract.
Hotels need brands, and brands need hotels. Like all relationships, the relationship between branded hotel operators or franchise companies (the brand) and hotel owners needs ground rules. As long as both parties agree to the rules and follow them, who can complain? Now, what happens if the ground rules change? In most relationships, both parties would agree to change the rules -- or they would separate and go their own ways.
Hotel Lawyer update on Hotel owners terminating hotel operators. Over the years we have spent a lot of time on the subject of getting a great hotel operator and terminating bad ones. Owner discontent seems to erupt when operators continue to deliver disappointing results and ignore owner's requests to drive the top line and manage costs. Then the operators wonder why owners are upset. See for example "Terminating hotel management agreements when things don't work" and "How to terminate a hotel management agreement when an operator really deserves it!".
Hotel Lawyer update on Hotel owners terminating hotel operators.This weekend has been a busy one for owners tired of dealing with their branded managers. The Turnberry Group dropped Fairmont on Sunday. See Hotel lawyers on terminating hotel operators: Turnberry Resort drops Fairmont flag.
Hotel management agreements among the large branded management companies follow what by now has become the standard formulation for fees, at least before the negotiation commences. The base fee and incentive fee are now well known in the industry and expected as the starting points in most manager-owner negotiations.
I was recently interviewed by Jason Freed of HotelNewsNow (a division of Smith Travel Research) about three high profile lawsuits in the hospitality industry. The first case we discussed was the recent lawsuit filed by the owner of the 353-room Edition Waikiki against Marriott and Ian Schrager. As the hotel's owner, M Waikiki LLC asked the New York Supreme Court to terminate its 50-year, no-cut hotel management agreement (HMA) with Marriott on its $250 million Honolulu hotel and to award damages for misrepresentation and breach of contract.